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    judios en el claustro de Tudela

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    14 views16 pages

    Patton - Anti-Jewish Imagery at Tudela

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    pablo puche
    judios en el claustro de Tudela

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    Pamela A. Patton The Cloister as Cultural Mirror: Anti-Jewish Imagery at Santa Maria la Mayor in Tudela The potential of imagery in Romanesque cloisters to fo~ cus and articulate the ideological concerns of their re- spective communities has inspired numerous scholarly studies. These frequently find such imagery to express positive, edifying spiritual ideals having to do with var- ious aspects of the common life practiced by its viewers, such as the mechanisms of letio divina, the importance of certain liturgies or feasts, or the models provided by the apostles or certain exemplary saints.' More rare, on the other hand, are instances in which the imagery of the cloister is shown to foray more widely into aspects of life that reach beyond the concerns of the cloister, marking the point of intersection between the relatively standardized internal ideals of the enclosed community and those of the more diverse and mutable society with- in which it makes its place.? These instances are impor- tant for what they suggest about the ideological porous- ness of enclosed religious communities and the degree to which their internal concerns could be shaped by the pressures of outside life, One case in which such porous- ness is clearly observable is the Romanesque cloister of Santa Maria la Mayor in'Tudela (Navarre), where, within 1 See, among others, L. Pressouvke, “Saint Bernard to Saint Fran- cis: Monastic Ideals and Ieonographic Programs in the Cloister", Gesta, XXIV & 2 (1973), 71-92; W. Dynes, “The Medieval Cloister as the Portica of Solomon”, Getta, XIL/1 & 2 (1973), 61-69; Th. Lruan, “Portail, Portiques, Paradis: rapports icono- sgraphiques dans le Midi", Cahiers de Saint Michel de Cus, VIL (1976), 35-43; K. Honsre, Cloister Design and Monastic Reform in Tnlous. The Romanesque Sculpture of La Daunade, Oxford 19923 1. Fonsvtu, “The Vita Apostolica and Romanesque Sculpture: Some Preliminary Observations", Gesta, XXV/2 (1986), 75-82; L, Supe, “Medieval Cloister Carving and Monastic Mentalite’, The Medicoal Monastey, ed. Andrew MacLeisch, St. Cloud, (Minnesota) 1988, 1-11; Eos. AtaMo, “Triumphal Visions and Monastic Devotion: The Annunciation Relief of Santo Domingo de’Silos’, Gest XXIX/2 (1990), 167-188; P. A. Par- 10x, “The Capitals of San Juan de la Pefa: Narrative Sequence and Monastic Spirituality in the Romanesque Cloister”, Studies inn lonography, XX (1998), 51-100; and Th, E. A. Dats, “Mon sters, Corporeal Deformities, and Phantasms in the Cloister of Saint-Michel de Cuxa’, The Art Bulletin, LXXXIIL/3. Sept 2001), 402-436, The relationship between monastic ideals and cloister iconography in several northeastern Spanish cloister, including that of Tudela, is also considered in my book, Pictorial [Narrative in the Romanesque Cloister in Spain: a Study of Cloister Imagery and Medioval Religions Life, Madeid (forthcoming). 2 As argued, e-g,, by Meyer Sciartno, “Mozarabic to Roman- esque in Silos’, The Art Bulletin, XXI (1939), 312-374 3 A donation of 1986, earmarked for “operi claustri novi santae a highly organized narrative program, an unusual anti- Jewish subtext reflects with peculiar vividness its com- ‘munity’s local cultural context. Construction of the Tudela cloister was begun around 1186, the year of a donation earmarked for this purpose; it was completed by the first years of the thirteenth cen- tury (Fig. 1, 2)2 This construction, like that of the col- legiate church to which the cloister is appended, should be seen as a distant consequence of the capture of Mus- lim-founded Tudela in 1119 by Alfonso I, Christian king of Navarre and Aragon.‘ Following that victory, Alfonso had offered the city’s Muslims one year to re- move themselves and their possessions to a moreréa on the edge of the city; he subsequently donated the city’s mosques to a community of Augustinian regular ca- nons. * The canons quickly took advantage of this gift, rededicating the city’s congregational mosque to serve as their church, Santa Maria la Mayor, and adding ancil- lary structures such as a hospital and refectory in the succeeding decades. In the last third of the twelfth cen- tury, the mosque itself was razed to make way for the Romanesque church and cloister found there today.* Maria de Tate’, traditionally is considered to mark the begin- ning of construction; this is supported by stylistic congruencies with other monuments of the same era, among them the apse sculptures of La Seo in Zaragoza, dated in the late 1180s, See especially A. oe Eonr, “La escultura del elausto de la Catedral de Tudela (Navarra), Principe de Viana, (1958), 66, and M.L. Mateo Monto, Eicllura roménicay de rier gtico de Tidela (Segunda mitad del silo XI primer cuato det XID), Tada 1997, 104-107, 234 4 On the correct date of the citys conquest, once thought to be 1114, see J. M. Lacanra, “La fecha de la conquista de Tudela”, Principe de Viana, XXII (1946), 45-54, Documentation and sec. ondary literature on the city’s early history are summarized by Mteno Mowo, Esatura de Tudela, 17-21. 5. F Fuentes Pascua, Calog dels archivos elsidstics de Tada, ‘Tudela 1944, doc. 2; see also Mauero Monto, Bice de Te 1a, 19-20, 208-28. 6 On the inhabitation and rededication ofthe mosque, sc J.M. Lacatra, “Documentos para el estudio de la reconquistay epo- blacin del Ebro”, Estudios en la Edad Media de la Corona de Ara .g6n, IL (1947), 491, doc. 20; 100m, “Fecha del la conquista de ‘Tudela’, 51, and M. Gowsz-Montno, “La mezquita mayor de Tedela", Principe de Viana, XVII (1945), 8-27. The hospital and refectory are documented as early 26 the 11605 (Fuentes, docs. 40-41, 48-51, 60, 88,119, and 124-125); on the chronology of the Romanesque church, see Mato Monto, Bscutia de Tide a, 25-28, Pamela A. Patton Fig 1: Tudela, Say Maria la Mayor, cloister, begun c, 1186, general view (photo: author) The cloister’s sculpted decoration is both visually rich and unusually coherent (Fig. 3). More than three- quarters of its cepitals are historiated, the majority with narrative scenes of Christ's Infancy, Ministry, Miracles, Passion and Restrrection, which are installed in a chrono. logical sequence proceeding clockwise from the clois- ter’s northwest comer pier along the extent of the north and east galleries and ending just beyond the southeast comer pier.” Following this is a series of capitals with events from the lives of various apostolic and mission- ary saints, including Paul, James, Andrew, and Law- rence, which finishes out the south gallery. The west 7 On the iconogrephy of Tudela, see De Ean, “La escultura del claustro de Tudeh”, who focuses mainly on the identifieation of and sources for, the imagery of individual capitals; se also brief er discussions by R. Crozer, “Recherches sur la sculpture ro- mane en Navarre et en Aragén. I. Les chapiteaux du cloitre de Tudela (Navarre) (I), Cabiers de Civilcation Médigoae, | an— Mar. 1960), 335-339; and M. Joven Hurnanno, “Los ciclos de |a Pasidn y Pascvas en la escultura roménica de Navarra", Pr dpe de Viana, (1987), 7-80, esp. 22-31. A more recent discussion of the capitals’ iconography and their larger issues of program and narrative steuture appears in Parton, Pictorial Naratce. 8 An expansion of the dean's residence to the closters noth re- sulted in the rerzoval of the original wooden ceiling as well 3s gallery, meanwhile, presents a more haphazard assort- ment of zoomorphic, allegorical, and narrative subjects which display, as we shall see, only an occasional the- matic relationship to the narrative and hagiographical ranges. The highly organized, predominantly linear in- stallation found in the cloister today seems to have been original to its design, having been preserved dur- ing a sixteenth-century enclosure of the cloister and carefully retained in the course of twentieth-century conservation.® The deliberateness with which the cloister’s linear narrative program was conceived is also evident in the walling in ofthe cloister arcades; sce M. Gone, “El claustro de Tudela", Bolen de a Comisién de Monuments Hlstricas y A ‘teas, XM (1921), 220-221; for the condition of the cloister by the nineteenth century, see L. Tonnes Bats, “El claustro de la catedral de Tudela, descrito por Juan Sodomil en 1885", Principe ‘de Viana, XV (1946): 785. Unpublished records ofthe cloister’s 1941 conservation by the Institucién Principe de Viana, now preserved in the Diputacién Provincial de Navarra (Actas dela Insttuciin Principe de Viana, 2 agosto 1941, fls, 12¢-13y) record that the sculpted elements of the site were numbered prior to restoration so that their original arrangement could be pre served, The Cloister as Cultural Mirror many aspects of the capitals’ design, which seem caleu- lated to facilitate a chronological reading of the clois- ter’s narrative galleries by a viewer passing cloclewise along the cloister walk. Not only are the capitals placed in chronological sequence correlating closely to the Gospels account, but they are configured so that the narrative foci of individual episodes are found almost exclusively on the three faces of the capital that are visi- ble from that trajectory, leaving the sides facing into the garth populated sparsely by secondary figures. The fre- quent placement of these foci on the comers of the drums, so that they span two or even three visible faces of the the capitals, lends the series a sense of forward progression, as does the rhythmic alternation of double and triple capitals found consistently throughout the cloister (Fig. 4). These manipulations of imagery and structure maximize the visibility and continuity of the cloister’s narrative cycle, forging an extended, story-like visual discourse that today, as in the late twelfth century, can be read from beginning to end with few interrup- tions or lacunae. ‘Asan ensemble, the narrative and hagiographical gal- leries of the cloister form a coherent, overarching icono- graphic program in which the story of Christ’s birth, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection, along with the adoption of his mission by the Apostles, is succeeded by representations of the saintly preachers and teachers who would continue this mission in the post-Biblical world-themes likewise Meded to, although less consis- tently, in several capitals of the cloister’s less orderly west gallery.’ In this linkage of Christ’s ministry with the activities of the apostles and preaching saints, the Tudela program is highly consistent with the missionary ideals of the Augustinian community for which it was made.” As I have shown elsewhere, such a coherent form of claustral design is not as unusual as it may at first seem, finding several regional parallels in the clois- ters of San Juan de la Pefia, San Pedro el Viejo in Hues- ca, Sant Cugat del Vallés, and the cathedral of Tarrago- na, all of which present Biblical narrative programs that are or were to some extent chronologically organized and display a similar tendency to reflect community ideology." In none of these works, however, can be found the distinctive anti-Jewish subtext that underlies the Christological program at Tudela, 9 E.g. two capitals on the west central pier depict the ministry of | Saint Martin; others decpict such generically monastic topics as, Lazarus and the Rich Man, 10 On the canons regular in Spain, see A. Vilavo Gonzitez, abadia de canénigos regulares de San Isidoro de Leén en el si- slo XL Vida espirituale inceleccual, in Pasaiento medieval bis- ‘pao. Homenaje a Horacio Santiago Otero, Madrid 1998, 117-140; U. Vones-Luenensrein, Suint-Raf id Spanien, Staien zur Verbre- lung. and zaom Wirken der Regularkanoniter vom Sain-Ruf in 319 Fig, 2: Tadela, church and cloister, plan (drawing: after Street) Jewish Agency in the Passion of Christ This subtext casts the Jewish people both as direct agents of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion and as conti- nuing antagonists toward the Christian faith, Its most obvious expression is found in the insertion into the cloister’ Passion narrative of two capitals depicting the Jews in conspiracy againist Christ. These capitals appear together on the inner faces Of the cloister’s northeast pier, just opposite the main entrance from the church (Fig. 5). The opening scene, found on the north face of the pier, depicts the Council of Priests and Scribes, who gather in the house of the high priest Caiaphas to dis- cuss how to effect Christ's death (Matthew 26:3-6, Luke 22:2, John 11:47-53), It consists of five male figures, ‘two seated in wooden chairs, whose gesticulating hands and actively turned heads reflect their lively discussion Avion anf der Ierschen Halbinel (11. und 12. Jabrbunder), Pais 1996; F.Canro et. Pozo, “El monacato de San Agus Espasa hasta la gran unién en el afio 1256”, Stomndum Regulant Vivere. Fesucbrift fir P. Norbert Backmund, ed. Gert Melville Windberg 1978, 5-30; and A. Lina Cone, “Vida canonical en la ‘Repoblacién’ de la Peninsula Ibérica?” Secunda Regelam Vivure, 75-85. 11 Parrox, "Capitals", $1-100 and twee, Pictorial Narrative. Pamela A. Patton on noes en an on Ivive wren ee: E . Ww wee @s @« f 0 src samaeasa @. . Pes ee HB BH (Fig, 6). All of the figures wear a peculiarly detailed cos- tume featuring lovvamped slippers, hood-like bur- nooses, and close-fitting caps, important Jewish signif iets to which we shall refuen. One figure holds a small book with a pentagonal envelope flap characteristic of Islamic bindings of the period; this detail stands in con- trast to the simpler Romanesque book bindings held by Christian figures in the cloister and helps to emphasize the scene’s non-Christian context.? The following scene, which appears on the adjacent a4 aa Fig, 3: Tudela, diagram of the cloister (Grawing: Jess Galloway) mon in Gothic Passion imagery, Romanesque depic- tions of either episode remain relatively rare, Even the narfative cycles most closely related to Tudela, such as those in the San Juan de la Pefia cloister and on the north portal of Ejea de los Caballeros, lack either one or both of the scenes, so that the Entry into Jerusalem is succeeded directly, and more traditionally, by stich canonical events as Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet and the Last Supper.!? The sheer unexpectedness of both scenes at Tudela thus offers the first signal of their east face of the pier, representsthié Payment of Judas, >) importance within the narrative. in which the priests accept Judas’s offer to betray Chirist in exchange for thirty silver pieces (Matthew 26:14-16, Luke"22:4-5). The traitorous apostle, displaying the bare head and feet characteristic of all Christ’s followers, $0 too does the prominence of the conspiracy scenes, both topographically within the cloister and narratolo- ically within its discourse of the Passion. Placed on the ‘outer two faces of the northeast pier, the Council and 2) appenss.at the left comer of the capital; 2 grimacing de->) Payment capitals are unavoidably the first encountered ) hand on ° /-ton_behind him places a his / by.a viewer entering the cloister from the hall-like cha- “(_ shoulder. A short parade of Jews, again-wearimg lowalip- Bers, Caps or hoods, ad now also rumpled trousers, ap- proach the apostle, into whose outstretched hand the foremost priest presses several coins (Fig. 7). Although scenes of both the Council of Priests and Scribes and the Payment of Judas would become com- pel that links the nave of the church to the cloister. This placement coincides as well with the physical transition between the Infancy and Ministry capitals set out in the cloister’s north gallery and the Passion and Resurrection episodes in the east. In this crucial location, the capitals’ impact upon the narrative is both literally and narrato- 12 For Islamic bindings, see J. A. Szinaat, The Archaeology of Medic- val Bookbinding, Aldershot 1999, 53. 1 thank Erie Matshall White for directing my attent 13 The Christological cycles at San Juan de la Peta and Ejea do include the Payment of Judas but lack the Council of Priests, and Scribes. More typically, local eyces lack both scenes, asin the case of fresco cycles from Sigena (National Museum of Cat- alan Art) and SS. Juliin and Basilisa in Bagiés (Diocesan Mu- seu, Jaca). 3 to this issue, ‘The Cloister as Cultural Mirror 321 Fig, 4 Tudela, view of east Apister gallery (photo: author) logically pivotal, effecting the transition between two distinct phases of the Christology just as they mark the viewer's passage from the north to the east cloister walk. The capitals’ placement on the corner pier creates several significant disruptions within their larger natra- tive context. First, by displacing more familiar, canoni- cal Passion episodes, such as the Last Supper and the Artest of Christ, into less prominent positions in the cloister’s east gallery, the conspiracy capitals usurp the expected climax of the narrative in a manner that sharp- ly reconfigutes it, placing the focus of Christ's downfall not on his wayward disciple Judas or on his Roman per- secutors, but emphatically on the Jewish priests and scribes by whom the event was engineered. Second, the insertion of the scenes is achronological, representing the cloister’s only significant deviation from the tradi- tional Gospels chronology. Whereas the Gospels concur in recounting the Council and Payment (Matthew 263-6 and 26:14-16; Luke 22:2 and 22:4-5; John 11:47-53) prior to both the washing of the disciples’ feet (John 13:5-11) and the Last Supper (Matthew 26:20-29; Mark 14: 17-25; Luke 22:14-23; John 13:12-30), at Tudela the conspiracy scenes have been 14 Eg the Ludus Brewter de Pasione preserved inthe Carmina Bur inserted between those two related events, intertupting their Waditional contiguity. Thus, a viewer following the narrative's linear trajectory along the north aisle to the northeast pier would first have encountered the Foot- washing (Fig. 8) but then, instead of the normally subse quent Last Supper, he would have encountered the two episodes of Jeisish conspiracy. Only after passing by both of these scenes and well into the east gallery would he have been in a position to turn and view the antici- pated Last Supper on the south face of the pier (Fig. 9). This disruption has important consequences: its in- terruption of the expected progression from Footwash- ing and Last Supper creates a narrative dynamic com- parable to that suggested by the verbal modifier “meanwhile,” in that it presents the priests’ conspiracy with Judas not as something that occurred prior to, but something that took place at the same moment as, Ghrist’s Passover celebration with his followers. Remi- niscent of a modem cinematographer’s back-and-forth cutting between simultaneous events, this interpolation also foreshadows later medieval Passion plays. that would make use of a similar narrative device. Both there and in the cloister, it has a similarly dramatic ‘ana manuscript now in Munich (Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. Pamela A. Patton Fig. 5: Tudela, northeast pier with Conspiracy scenes (photo: author) ‘ig: 6 Tudela, Council of Priests and Scribes (photo: author) Fig. 7: Tudela, Payment of judas (photo: author) effect, overshadowing the peaceful, litugically signifi- ceful reminder of the downfall to come and of the Jew- cant communion of Christ and his disciples with a for- ish agency implicitly behind it. 46603) Here after washing the disciples’ feet, Christ announces before returning promptly to the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26). ‘that one of his disciples will beray him (Matthew 26:25) and See the Latin transcription in K. Youn, The Druma of te Meio. with the words, “in medio tempore’, the scene shifis immedi- nal Church, Oxford 1933, 1,514 ately to Judas’ conspiracy with the priests (Matthew 26:14-15) _———— ————————— ‘The Cloister as Cultural Mirror Fig. 8: Tadela, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet (photo: author) Both in these scenes and elsewhere in the cloister, Jewish agency is further implied by complementary vi- sual strategies. An obvious instance is the inclusion of a demon at the Payment of Judas, a common element in nedieval versions of the scene, but rare i twelfth ‘entury examples and Picking even from the other monuments most closely related to Tudela (Fig. 10). Although perhaps inspired in part by-Luke’s claim that , Judas had been possessed by Satan (Luke 22:3), the de- ‘mion’s presence here surely als0 stood to evoke another | association that had taken on a growing importance in | Christian medieval thought: that of Jews as allies of the / devil.!® Within a scene in which Jewish antagonism to- ward Christ already is suggested in other ways, itis un- likely that such a compatible interpretation would have been lost on the cloister’s twelfth-century viewer Jewish agency is also indicated through the selective deployment of Jewish costume throughout the cloister’s narrative galleries. While most Christian figures in these sections wear simple robes and go unshod and bare- | headed, the Jewish ones are often set apart by the same \ ethnically coded details of dress already observed in \ the two conspiracy scenes: long burooses or caps, 15 See J. Thacutrennenc, The Devil and the Jews. The Melicoal Con ‘aption ofthe Jew and its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitiem, New Haven 1943, 18-31 16 The pointed hat found sporadically in twelfth Gospels imagery is derived from the late Antique “Phrygian” type and does not, seem intended to rellect contemporary customs of dress. On Christian representations of Jewish dress in the Middle Ages, see B, Buuwennnanz, Le jf médiéoal au miroir de Part créien, Paris 1966, 15-40; on the Jew’s hatin particular, see R, MELLIN” Fig 9: Tadela, Last Supper (photo: author) crumpled trousers, and low-cut slippers. This sartorial specificity is startling ina Work of the late twelfth cen- | tury, when explicit visual distinctions between Jews and |) non-Jews, if they appeared at all, still tended to extend | no further than the addition of a generic peaked hat de- | rived from late Antiquity." The Jewish costume at Tu-/} dela, by contrast, is remarkably specific, corresponding / well with what is known about the dress actually worn by twelfih-century Jews in northeastern Spain, ‘Although most westem European Jews were not re- quired to wear distinctive dress until after the Fourth | Lateran Council of 1215," such practices already ex- isted in many areas of Europe, including Muslim Spain, | where as early as 849 the Caliph al-Mutawakkil ordered both Jews and Christians to wear distinguishing cos- sS tumes.'* In the late twelfth century, this mandate was NY renewed with vigor by the Almohad caliph Ya’qub ibn (> \y Yasuf Al-Mansur, who established that for Jews such dress should include a black burnoose and black cap probably much like those depicted at Tudela.'"? That such garb might in fact have been worn by twelfth-cen- tury Jews in this originally Muslim city is very likely, gi ven the recentness of the city’s conversion and the pos- i" ‘one, Onteat: Signs of Oternes it European Art ofthe Late Middle Ages, Berkeley 1993, 65-69, 17 A.Runens, A History of Jewish Costume, ev. ed., London 1981, 80-81 18 Runes, ibid, 31. 19 JF O'CauuscHan, A History of Medicoal Spain, Whaca 1975, 286, See also N. Rove, Jews, Visigocs and Masts in Medicoal Spain. Cooperation and Conflict, Leiden 1994, 118, 124. Cn Fig. 10: San Juan de la Pea, cloister, 1180-1195, capital depicting the Payment of Judas (photo: author) sible presence there of Jewish refugees from Almohad Spain.” Subsequent visual and documentary sources from Christian Spain bear this out: a hood and round cloak became required Jewish identifiers in the north- astern city of Tortosa, while black bumooses and

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